Warrior For One Night. Nancy Gideon

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СКАЧАТЬ inside until her head ached with it. Until her eyes swam with it. What if he was true to his word? What if he got her blackballed from doing contract work in this, the height of fire season? When she was counting so desperately on the money to keep their business afloat? To keep them afloat.

      What had she done?

      “Don’t worry, Mellie.” Her uncle’s big hand fell warm and comforting on her shoulder. “You and Quinn just always seem to rub each other the wrong way, but I can’t believe he’d turn his back on our friendship.”

      “I hope you’re right, Charley.” For all their sakes.

      But he wasn’t. The next morning proved Quinn Naylor a man of his word. There was no work to be found, no crew that would have her, even with pilots scarce and long hours looming. She had every door politely but firmly closed in her face until all that was left was a disgraced retreat. She wouldn’t go begging. No matter how bad things got. If that was what Naylor was hoping for, he could wait until this particular hell froze over.

      “We’ll get by,” Charley vowed with his eternal optimism. But he wasn’t the one paying the bills. He wasn’t the one writing the checks, hoping the bank would clear them. He wasn’t the one looking over the long list of debts owed, dividing them into piles of can-wait, not-yet, and last-call. They needed to make repairs. They needed to pay their insurance premium. And it would be nice to have something in the refrigerator other than beer and tortillas.

      “We’ll find a way,” she assured him with a confidence she was far from feeling.

      She wasn’t one for belief in miracles. Especially when she opened the door of her makeshift home in the back of their hangar and started picking up the scattering of mail strewn about the floor. Bills. Second Notice. Final Notice. She sorted and tossed them one by one into the wastebasket by the door. Problem solved. For the moment. Then, she caught sight of the light blinking on her answering machine. Hoping it was a crew leader having come to his senses, she hit playback.

      “Ms. Parrish, my name is Jack Chaney. I’m looking for a pilot with a lot of moxie. If you’re looking for a job that pays a helluva lot more than you’re making now, give me a call.”

      “What’s that all about?” Charley asked, observing her odd concentration.

      “I’m not quite sure. Maybe just the life ring we need to keep us from going under for the third time.”

      

      She’d made the follow-up call to Personal Protection Professionals out of curiosity. What would a private protection agency want with someone like her? But after talking, first over the phone, then face-to-face, with its owner and badass operator Jack Chaney she got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, she was in the right place at exactly the right time. Chaney was looking for someone to do piloting security work on an on-call basis. The money was good. The money was actually great—and just the infusion of life-sustaining capital to support her and her uncle’s air charter service until Quinn Naylor saw fit to give her a break. There was nothing in the short assignments to get in the way of the everyday operation of Wings of Fire. And Chaney clinched the deal by paying off the balance on her overdue insurance to keep her airborne. She had the talent and the tools and he had the connections. A marriage made in bartering heaven.

      Four weeks later, feeling silly in her formfitting flight suit with its howling wolf logo stitched over her left breast, with her licensed weapon tucked almost as an embarrassment under the seat of her Bell Long Ranger, she set down in Las Vegas to pick up her first assignment. Newly trained in firearms skills, hand-to-hand, surveillance and the legal ins and outs of employing any of those methods under the guise of a bodyguard she felt strong and confident in her new role. Until she got her first look at her client.

      Xander Caufield, an insurance specialist carrying a fortune in rare stamps to an exhibit/trade show in Reno. That didn’t sound too dangerous. Or exciting. She was to ferry him wherever he wanted to go and keep him and the contents of his locked case safe. Not exactly shuttling military secrets. Old stamps were about as thrilling as the envelopes she’d tossed into the waste can. She couldn’t imagine any high-level intrigue going on there. But it was her first sizable paycheck, slotted to cover her fuel bill, and she would take it as seriously as the number of zeroes ahead of the decimal point.

      She waited in the broil of the midday Nevada sun as a sleek limo approached, fighting the impulse to shade her eyes to get a better look at the man stepping out of that big backseat toting a metal courier case and a garment bag. With the glare off the hardtop, all she could discern were polished shoes and an immaculate suit. The first thing that impressed her, because she couldn’t see his features, was the way he moved. He had a quick, aggressive step implying no hesitation in wherever he was going. An all business stride. Together with the expensive suit, that got her hot-guy Geiger counter ticking away at a brisk pace. Then he crossed into the shade of the Ranger and the needle went off the charts.

      He was Maxim gorgeous. Dark, styled, but in no way soft. Chiseled masculine features, a heavy slash of brows, uncompromising mouth and a direct stare that could probably bend steel bars. She caught herself before wetting her lips but allowed an inner rowl-rowl. His gaze touched on her briefly as she came forward to greet him, her hand extended to take his bag.

      “Mr. Caufield, I’m Mel Par—”

      “Let’s go. I’m in a hurry.”

      She rocked back on her heels as he strode by, her brows lifting slightly. Aware that her hand still hung in midair, she scrubbed it against the other one and let both fall to her sides. “All righty then. Welcome aboard, buckle up and we’ll get airborne.”

      He climbed up into the copter, giving her a glimpse of a monumentally nice butt. But since he was acting like one, her interest cooled considerably. Sometimes good looks just couldn’t overcome bad manners. A shame.

      He settled into the back, draping his suit bag over one seat, strapping into the other. Situating the case between his elegantly clad feet, he looked purposefully out the window. Dismissing her as if she were invisible.

      Great. See if she’d offer the in-flight movie.

      After a quick preflight check and a chat with the tower, she had them up and off the flat Vegas desert.

      The flight was silent and uneventful. Easy money. Because small talk with her coldly gorgeous passenger was off the table, she fiddled with the radio, trying to pick up chatter on the latest blaze chewing its way through remote California forest land, heading for her back door. So far, they were trying to contain it with backfires and burnouts, but it was proving to be a tricky beast. Dry conditions and high winds had it skipping and shifting one step ahead of their best efforts to suppress it.

      Listening to the dispatcher and the back-and-forth banter, a fierce longing to be in the thick of it had her clenching her teeth and calling down all manner of ills upon Quinn Naylor. It didn’t matter that she had a job, that her time was well paid for by her arrogant passenger in back. If she thought there was the slightest chance she could zip over the state line and be toting hand crews and hotshots from dawn until dusk, she’d have pushed Mr. Xander I’mtoo-damned-important-to-give-you-a-polite-nod Caufield out the back door to let his glacial attitude warm a bit out in the sun and sand. But that wasn’t going to happen and Caufield’s comfy ride was guaranteed for the moment.

      And it didn’t hurt that he was so easy on the eyes.

      She settled back in her seat and tried to calm her mood toward her meal ticket.

      Mel appreciated affluent men…from СКАЧАТЬ